Follow the Science? An Essay Pillaging the Claims of Scientism

“Science itself, which so superciliously scorns metaphysics, assumes a metaphysic in its every thought. It happens that the metaphysic which it assumes is the metaphysic of Spinoza.”

Will Durant
The Story of Philosophy; The Lives and Opinions of the Great Philosophers – p. 187 

Durant informs us here what every eyes wide-open human being knows and that is that Science can only properly be called “science” when it descends from a metaphysic (and what else is metaphysics except theology?) that is accurate. One’s science is only as good as one’s theology. Show me bad science (and there is plenty around to be shown) and I will show you bad metaphysics.If Durant is correct, and it is certain that he is, then the whole notion of casually invoking science by saying, “I’m just following the science,” is seen as fatuous as it always really has been. A wise man reaches for his revolver every time he hears someone say “I’m just following the science.” Really? Who’s science? Which metaphysic accounts for the “science you’re just following?” What if your metaphysics sucks? Do you then understand that means that the science you’re following also sucks?

Still, the pied pipers of Scientism continue playing their tune and the rubes keep singing along. Though written 100 years ago, the reverential attitude towards science that is contained in this Cushman quote continues apace today,

“Science alone must be the new foundation — a science of facts. The age of the freedom of conscience will cease when indubitable science rules man in his ethics, psychology, and government as it now rules in the natural sciences.”

Herbert E. Cushman

A Beginners History of Philosophy — pg. 384

How do I know this is a mantra that continues to be chanted? Well, just ask yourself how often you’ve heard people like Greta Thunberg  say things like her?

“I think this pandemic has shone a light on how … we are depending on science and that we cannot make it without science. But of course, we are only listening to one type of scientist or some types of scientist, and, for example, we are not listening to climate scientists, we’re not listening to scientists who work on biodiversity and that, of course, needs to change.”

How often have we had to listen to Dr. Fauci say that on the ChiCom Virus they are just following the science as if science was this independent reality that was not dependent upon having a proper theology (metaphysic) to be based upon?

“I’ll tell you what I have lived by. You follow the science. You stick with the science. You make decisions, policies and recommendations based purely on the science.”

Dr. Fauci

But again, the question is whose science? Science based on which metaphysic? Which God is driving Fauci’s science?

Almost 60 years ago Thomas Kuhn published “Structures in Scientific Revolutions.”  In that book, Kuhn detailed how it is that the original Durant quote above is accurate. Science is metaphysic dependent and different metaphysics yield different science.  As such screaming and screeching that “we need to follow the science,” is juvenile since science is not an independent neutral lode star where you pop a quarter in and you get an answer. It should be clear to anybody following the whole ChiCom virus “scamdemic” that whatever science people like Fauci and Gates and the Great Reset group are using their science sucks.

Men like Fauci, Gates, and the Great Reset groupies have turned Science into a religion.

“Science is a religion, science alone will henceforth make the creeds, science alone can solve for men the eternal problems, the solution of which his nature imperatively demands.

Ernst Renan

The Future of Science — pg. 90-91

But their science as well as their religion is all based on a false metaphysic. These “scientists” own materialism (naturalism) as their metaphysic and in owning materialism as their metaphysic their science is going to be errant. (Never mind the whole politicization of science which demands certain politically correct outcomes before the scientific tests are even under way.)

“Naturalism is the view that the only way to understand our universe is through the scientific method. Materialism is the idea that the only reality is the physical matter of the universe, and that everything else, including thoughts, will, and emotions come from physical laws acting on that matter. The message of evolution and all of science is one of naturalistic materialism.”

Jerry A. Coyne

Why Evolution is True — p. 224

Because Fauci, Gates, and the Great Reset keystone cops are all naturalists their science should not be trusted. Their science also should not be trusted because it has been demonstrably shown to be so consistently wrong. Only by playing with the statistics have they been able to keep this “pandemic” narrative alive.

What we are living through right now might be called a Materialistic Scientific positivism. In Positivism — a social theory popularized by Auguste Comte but descending from Kant’s insistence that man can only deal with the phenomenon and must realize that the noumena can never be arrived at — what is measurable and observable (science) is the singular mechanism for knowing reality. Values and experiences must be legitimized through empirical means.

However, the problem here is that there is nothing that is measurable and observable in the statement, “values and experiences must be legitimized through empirical means.” That values statement of Positivism can not be legitimized through empirical means. Show me the test that demonstrates that “values and experiences must be legitimized through empirical means.” You can’t and so by Kant’s and Comte’s own standard this statement fails as a means of knowing reality.

Of course, Comte was sneaking in his theology through the back door of his Positivism and Scientism. That theology was that man would be the one who would provide the ontological parameters for what would and would not be allowed as “true.” This is classical humanism.

Understand that in what has been simply stated above Scientism and Positivism has been absolutely demolished. Scientism and Positivism invoking pseudo neutrality (the Scientific method so called) introduced a false objective standard (only that which is empirical and observable is true) and so ruled out the God of the Bible and Biblical Christianity.

Because this is true, I will continue to laugh at the scientific pronouncements as they come down from on high from the Great Reset Keystone cops. These people are not dealing in science and what they have done in the name of science in fearmongering the whole planet so they can pursue their Great Reset ought to find them charged with capital crimes resulting in their capital punishment.

Don’t follow the current science. It will only get you enslaved or killed.

When the Clergy Say Stupid Things That Make You Doubt What You Read

“Hoping that we are entering a new era where we in the complementarian world take all the Word of God seriously–not just the parts about distinction of roles but also re: the tearing down of all hierarchy & his gracious distribution of gifts to all his children!”

J. D. Greear
President Southern Baptist Convention

This quote came from a twitter feed and to be honest I am really hoping that there is some context I’m missing here.

As it stands the President of the SBC is suggesting that God desires the tearing down of all hierarchy. I’d love to hear a sermon from Scripture proving that proposition.  I mean, I’d expect that Anabaptists to give such a sermon a go but I hardly expected the President of the SBC to be channeling Jan Van Leyden, Jan Matthis, and Bernard Kniperdolling. (Men if you attend the Church Greear presides over I’d suggest you hide your wives and daughters. Who knows where this Anabaptist impulse will end?)

Does J. D. Greear really believe God desires the tearing down of all hierarchy? If so it sucks to be Greear since that means his job as the shepherd of his flock is in jeopardy. It means that his role as the parents of his children is in jeopardy. And for Greear, it means that Greear’s wife’s role as the head of the home is in jeopardy.

Honestly, do these people even read history anymore? Do they read just standard theology that is plagued by the Wokeification of the Church? As a Baptist has Greear ever heard of Spurgeon, Gill, Dagg or Backus? As he ever read them?

The Anabaptist pool out of which Greear is drinking was never considered anything but heresy by both Rome and the Reformers.

Note the contradiction in that statement. If it is the case that Scripture affirms the maintenance of all roles then it cannot be the case that Scripture at the same time teaches the elimination of all hierarchy. It is simply the case that the presence of gender roles is the presence of hierarchy. You can’t have both at the same time. Greear is speaking like an idiot.

But not to worry. Only I and a handful of others will notice.

Some Quotes Never Get Old

I am a Pastor of a Reformed (Calvinist) Church. One of the unique positions of Calvinists is their belief in election and predestination and providence. These doctrines teach the totalistic Sovereignty of the God of the Bible. There is nothing that happens that God hasn’t ordained. God, in His Sovereignty, chooses some for eternal life and reprobates others unto eternal death. God chooses who will be high born and who will be low born. God chooses who will be winners (Jacob have I loved) and who will be losers (Esau I have hated). This is staple Calvinism. One cannot be a Calvinist who does not believe and hold to this understanding of Christianity.

Yet, almost two months ago now, “Rev.” Reggie Smith, spokesman for the Christian Reformed Church stepped right up to the microphone and in a press release faulted Christ the King Reformed Church for teaching a doctrine that,

“Teaches that God picks some people, while not picking others. There are winners and losers. (This doctrine) provides this sense of certainty that can contribute to an air of supremacy or entitlement in a church.”

This is like accusing Mary Poppins of taking care of children. It is like accusing Babe Ruth of hitting Home Runs. It is like accusing Jacques Costeau of scuba diving. It’s like accusing Homer of writing the Iliad and the Odyssey. Rev. Smith … Dude … I am guilty as charged. I am also guilty of teaching infant-baptism, total depravity, and limited atonement. So, shoot me already.

I freely admit that the doctrine of election to eternal life and even the doctrine of predestination to our various life stations can indeed and even has in the past contributed to an air of supremacy and entitlement in the church but all because a doctrine can lead to something negative because it is mishandled, doesn’t mean that the doctrine is not true. It only means that the doctrine can be mishandled.

If anything Smith’s incredible proclamation proves that the doctrine he is inveighing against (Kinism) is just your garden variety Calvinism.

From the Mailbag … Christian School Teacher Comments on “The Virtue of Doubt”

“As a Christian school Bible teacher at the high school level, doubt is often treated as a virtue. I am all for allowing students to ask questions, but our role then is to proclaim the truth and show them what God says in Scripture – that must become the foundation. Yet, so many of my colleagues are more content to fuel and foster the doubt as if that is commendable self-discovery. They equally loathe to actually proclaim what Scripture says because that might offend a student and well, “we have to accommodate all of the denominations here.” Is it any wonder then that so many children leave Christian school only to apostatize?

I am only one teacher but do we ever need more who are ready and able to stand firm and say: “thus says the Lord” not only in the pulpit but also in the classroom.”

Jacob

A few observations Jacob

1.) First, God be with you for championing his cause.

2.) The irony in fostering doubt teachers and ministers are at that point fostering certainty. They are fostering in students the certainty of those student’s doubts. Skepticism is inherently self-contradictory.

3.) We see in your note the oxymoronic nature of interdenominational schools. Teaching students that all contradictory Christian beliefs are to be allowed as truth inculcates in Christian students the conviction that only a lack of conviction on the things that matter most is to be prized. Calvinists should never send their children to these kinds of schools because Calvinism is superior to all other Christian faith systems and it should be taught as being superior.

“You may examine all the history of Christian people and of religious systems and you will not find any more eminent for piety and morality than the Calvinists. In charity, in liberality, in industry, in temperance, in purity of life, they stand without a superior — perhaps without an equal. Compare the Huguenots and Jansenists, who were Calvinists, with their countrymen, the Romanists, and Jesuits, who were Arminians. Were not the former illustrious in virtue as the latter were notorious for immorality.”

Nathaniel S. McFetridge
Calvinism in History; A Political, Moral, and Evangelizing Force — p. 89

Liberty & Intermediate Institutions

“Rulers who wish to attach the loyalty of the citizens unconditionally to the state apparatus do everything in their power to detach them from intermediate loyalties. They are abetted by one of the delusions of Libertarianism, which often unwittingly aids the state in its aim… In asserting total autonomy in those ways, the individualist sets the stage for his complete loss of liberty, for there is nothing to protect him from the Idol State, which is too happy to assist in the destruction of intermediate institutions.”

Hebert Schlossberg

Idols for Destruction

Note one of the implications here is that Libertarians and Collectivists work cheek by jowl in their allegedly opposite work. If Libertarians are successful in their political pursuits the result will be the eventual ascendancy of Collectivism and if Collectivists are successful in their political pursuits the result will be the eventual revolt of the Libertarian. This is because as Schlossberg notes they are each doing the same work of destroying the intermediate institutions so that all that remains is the atomized individual who can only find identity as set against the backdrop of the State.

Libertarians do this by insisting on the “freedom” from all mediating institutions in the name of individual sovereignty, resulting in an individual who can only understand themselves against the background of a sovereign state. Collectivists do this by insisting that all is inside the state and nothing is outside the state, thus insuring that individual can only understand themselves against the background of the state.

Schlossberg underscores this when elsewhere he pens,

“Collectivism and egoism (Libertarianism) are both derived from immanence, both can live only when the limitations of transcendent law are overthrown, both are symptoms of the same disease. If it is lawful for the individual to do as he pleases, why should it not be lawful for the commisar to do as he pleases? If there is nothing to restrain one lawfully, then there is nothing to restrain the other.”

Another implication here is that there is can be no genuine liberty where the intermediate institutions are destroyed. Man can not be free apart from belonging to intermediate institutions like family, church, and nation (as distinct from the state). When these institutions are eclipsed man loses his identity and has only his collective self in the tyrant state wherein to determine his identity and so meaning. True liberty can only prosper where family, church, and nation have interdependent liberties befitting their natural and God-assigned jurisdictions.

Think about where we are now. The Church is now an extension of the State. We see this in the majority of Churches who are now reinterpreting Christianity through the prism of Cultural Marxism, Critical Race Theory, and Wokeification. There really no longer exists an Institutional Christian Chuch whose voice is strong enough to challenge the presuppositions of the God state. Individual churches and voices exist but in terms of cultural infrastructure leverage the church is dead and is owned by the State. The same is true of the family as institution. Individual families exist who understand their appointed jurisdictional authority but like the Church the family’s cultural infrastructure as a means of leverage is dead.  So, the State has succeeded in destroying the intermediate institutions.

And until we rebuild those intermediate institutions, culturally and institutionally speaking, God is dead.